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Bushcraft: Making a Willow Basket
I like working with my hands. When doing so, my mind tends to slip into the present and errant thoughts subside. I view this as good and practicing this state helps me focus during daily routines. When Iโm not using my hands to create something, I get tense and nervous. Iโm not sure why this happens, but I suspect the need to use my hands runs in my blood โ my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all carpenters. Last year, we moved from a house with a big workshop to a small house with a shed that just fits the canoes and kayaks. I lost the place where I builtโฆ
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NOAA Marine Chart Converter
NOAA makes its marine charts available for free to the public, but those charts come in a BSB format. If you want to manipulate the marine charts on your computer, unless you hack the file, you have to use a computer program designed to read the BSB format. To make the charts usable in any graphics program or to print your own NOAA charts, you need to convert them from the native BSB format to a graphics format like PNG, JPEG or TIFF. In the past, you had to use NOAAโs somewhat confusing tool or a command-line hack. Bob Webster, feeling our pain, programed an open-source BSB converter. It convertsโฆ
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Hudsonโs Bay Company North Canoe Plans
The voyagers of the Hudsonโs Bay Company needed big canoes to transport trade goods into the American interior. The 30-foot Hudsonโs Bay Company 4-1/2-Fathom North Canoe fit the bill. This 59-inch-wide canoe typically transported five bales of general trade good, one bale and two rolls of tobacco, one bale of kettles, one case of guns, one case of hardware, two bags of lead shot, one bag of flour, one keg of sugar, two kegs of gunpowder and 10 kegs of wine. In addition to the trade goods, each member of the crew brought one bale of private property, one bag of corn, a partial keg of grease, bedrolls and canoeโฆ
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Kigo Footwear Review
A month or so ago, Kigo Footwear sent me a pair of shoes to test. Since they arrived, Iโve used them for paddling, wading up rivers, rock-hoping, hiking, around town, traveling and for just about every activity that I do. Although, Iโm not sold on the style, which looks sort-of like an aqua-sock โ I end up wearing these shoes more than any others I own. Why? Because theyโre easy to put on and comfy! Kigo bills the Edge as: With unisex slip-on styling, the kigo edge is designed for active men and women. The shoes provide complete foot coverage for a fully protected barefoot stride. Full coverage keeps dirtโฆ
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Navigation: Ranges
When paddling, if you line up two features โ artificial or natural โ you have the makings of a range. A range is a type of line of position that can help you stay on course or help you find your position on the map (think of a line of position as an imaginary line that runs between you and an other point. It helps you find your position on the map). For a range, imagine a line that runs from the two lined-up features to your boat. As long as the two features remain lined up, you are somewhere along that imaginary line. If you can find those featuresโฆ
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1865 St. Francis Canoe Plans
The 1865 St. Francis 2-Fathom Canoe appears as Figure 80 in The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. It represents the typical form of a late-19th century St. Francis canoe, which, as described by Howard I. Chapelle, has high-peaked ends, a quick upsweep to the top of the stems, a vertical end profile with a short radius turn from the keel and rocker that occurs only in the ends of the canoe. By the middle of the 19th century, Chapelle notes that the St. Francis were building a fine canoe and selling them to sportsmen. These models became the standard for hunting and fishing in Quebec. Because ofโฆ
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Navigation: Aiming Off
When youโre paddling to a destination located somewhere along a nondescript shoreline, itโs easy to miss your target even if you took an exact bearing. There are lots of reasons why this might happen, some of those reasons include wind or current pushing you off course, lack of attention, slight inaccuracy in your compass reading or maybe magnetic deviation. But, the truth is that itโs hard to end up at an exact location without a visual clue. In situations like this, use a technique called aiming off to make sure you end up at your desired destination. How to Aim Off To aim off, you deliberately set a course offโฆ
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Experiential Values in Lightweight Canoe and Kayak Travel
In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold argues cultural values make and feed a healthy culture. For outdoor sports, he outlines three types of experiential values that provide nutrition to the sporting culture. These values apply to the modern lightweight movement as well as they do to the hook-and-bullet sports he writes about. Awareness and practice of these values enhances our experiences while traveling light. The three cultural values that Leopold defines are: Experiences that remind of us of our distinctive origins and evolution. He calls this โsplit-railโ values presumably after split-rail fences that personify the American pioneer homestead and the frontier spirit. Experiences that remind us of our dependencyโฆ
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Fram Museum 1888 West Greenland Kayak Plans
When I visited the Fram Museum in Olso, Norway, I fell in love with a West Greenland kayak displayed as part of the Fram collection. The kayak is Fram number 176. Native Greenlanders built the kayak in 1888 for one of arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansenโs colleagues after Nansenโs successful crossing of the Greenland icecap (Sea Kayaker article about the Fram kayaks). The kayak has a sweeping sheer, little stern rocker, and an extra partial chine half-way between the chine and sheer near the bow. Leather and bone decklines decorate the kayakโs deck. Plates, pegged to the boat, protect the bow and stern. The lines appear in Harvey Goldenโs Kayaks ofโฆ
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Sierra Designs Lazer 30 Review
All summer, I used the 2010 Sierra Designs Lazer 30 as my only sleeping bag โ for one trip report, check out the Sea Gull Lake loop trip report. I bought it to supplement my excellent Mountain Smith Wisp 800-fill down sleeping bag with a synthetic. Although, I donโt worry about getting a down bag wet on paddling trips, sometimes I just like synthetics, because the smell of down doesnโt always agree with me. I also wanted a sleeping bag that would quickly dry after washing it. The 2010 version of Sierra Designsโ Lazer is an โultralightโ synthetic bag. It features a flexible mid-section, a jacket-style hood, an ergonomically shapedโฆ
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Fram Museum Kayaks and Kayaking Gear
In 2008, I visited Norway to kayak and be a tourist. The trip started in Oslo with visits to the museums. Then we flew north to kayak in the Lofoten Islands. After the Lofoten Islands, we kayaked in Aurlandsfjorden near Flรฅm. The scenery was stunning the entire trip โ itโs the type of place that you can drop a camera and get a great picture. Even though the scenery was overwhelming and the kayaking good, I enjoyed the museums the most. Seeing my first โrealโ traditional Greenland kayak and the accompanying gear was one highlight. The Fram Museum in Oslo houses the polar ship Fram, which still holds the recordโฆ
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Free Walrus Kayak Plans
In 1921, Norman L. Skene surveyed the 1921 Peabody Museumโs Southwest Greenland kayak. Taken by the lines, he drew up plans for a westernized version, which he named Walrus. For the Walrus, he widened the boat to 22 inches, lowered the deadrise and designed a larger cockpit. Construction changed from bent ribs and animal skin to dimensional lumber, truss-like framing and canvas skin. He published the free plans in the June 1923 issue of The Rudder. By the time Skene published the article, many kayaks of his design had already been built. Builders noted that the design was seaworthy and easy to learn to paddle. Recently, George Putz covered buildingโฆ
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Review of Canoe and Kayak Building Books
If you want to build a kayak or canoe from the free plans found on PaddlingLight, you should buy a couple of canoe or kayak building books. Most use different methods, which you can combine to make your boat uniquely yourโs. There are lots of books out there to cover in a review, so Iโm going to break them down into different categories and arrange them from the first to buy to the last. Iโll write a quick one-paragraph review. Iโm leaving lots of books off this list, because I think these are the best. Cedar Strip Kayak Building Books Most of the plans that I do are designed forโฆ
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Understanding Magnetic Deviation
Magnetic forces contained within your kayak can cause your compass to read an incorrect bearing. This type of error is known as magnetic deviation. With 1 degree of compass error, over a mile, youโll end up about 92 feet away from your destination. If your deviation is extreme like shown in the image, you could completely miss your target by over 1.7 miles on a 10 mile crossing. Worse still, deviation varies as you turn your kayak. For example, you might have a negative 10 degree error when pointing northwest, but that might change to a positive three when pointing southwest. Making a chart showing the deviation error at eachโฆ
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Free Plans: 1921 Southwest Greenland Kayak
In 1921, Norman L. Skene took the lines off of the Peabody Museumโs Southwest Greenland kayak. Those lines, drawn by Howard I. Chapelle, appear as figure 207 in The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. The kayak is similar in length and width to the 1883 Southwestern Greenland kayak with a few differences. The 1921 kayak shows little rocker, whereas, according to Chapelle, the 1883 kayak shows about the most amount used in a southwestern style. The 1921 boat shows both less deadrise and less flare than the 1883 boat. Also, the sheer line is less sweeping than the 1883 kayak. Chapelle notes that both the 1883 andโฆ
